Tuesday, July 15, 2008

Bad Mother Lost

Yesterday, I got lost. Badly lost.

Like, lost as in take the wrong train and end up a station with a name similar to the one that you were aiming for but not exactly the same which is to say the wrong station located in the middle of oh my god butt-freaking nowhere such that when you finally realize that you've made a terrible terrible mistake but you're already like an hour and a half into your journey and you can't turn back because there are two things that you absolutely must accomplish within a limited time frame - pick up baby's passport at passport office and pick up baby's grandmother at airport - and so starting over is not an option and in any case that train station that you just left is at the top of a nasty flight of stairs that took you twenty minutes and the assistance of a blind man to get down, what with the infant in the fucking stroller and all - and, since we're on the subject, why did that same man wait until the stroller had been wrestled down to the bottom of the stairs before informing you that you were, actually, about an hour away from the place that you were trying to get to? - which is how you found yourself standing at a desolate bus stop in front of some sinister industrial buildings with tumbleweed rolling past your feet and the shrill of vultures circling overhead.

That kind of lost.

I do not, however, have the mental or emotional energy to try to work that story into anecdote. After days and days of barely being able to meet the demands of everyday life, that one day sucker-punched me and now I feel entirely incoherent. So the story of getting lost in the dark territory that is Toronto's near-suburbs must deferred - which is to say, given the reality of blog-writing, lost - as must any account of my bus ride out of the land of the lost, during which I sat across from a gentleman clad in a t-shirt that read Screw Me If I'm Wrong But Haven't We Met Before?, as well as any recounting of the oddly touching half-hour that I spent in a nursing room at the mall adjoining the passport offices with an on-duty Jamaican cleaning lady and a half-dozen teenage goth girls, one of whom was nursing a beautiful, blond 13-month old who wore a cheery onesie that read Mama's Boy. Nor am I able to muster the will to rant about the absurdity of infant passports, or the bizarre complexities of the Canadian foreign affairs bureaucracy.

So I will just let the Girl Formerly Known As Wonderbaby have the stage today, and she will use her words* to introduce her newly passported brother to everyone who will meet him this weekend in San Francisco:

That's my BABY BROTHER!

His name is JASPER!

He has TWO WHEELS and a BIG HEAD!

And he LIKES BOOBIES!

(*As proclaimed to a waiter at Boston Pizza Sunday night)

(If no-one sees this baby in San Francisco this weekend, it is because his mother has gotten lost. SEND HELP.)

You know what Einstein said when confronted with his baby sister: "Where are the wheels?" I believe he had been told he was getting a baby sister "to play with" and assumed she was some sort of wheeled toy ...

And yes, I have to admit, I've had a thought or two about how ridiculous it is to issue a passport with a photo for a human who looks like most others his/her age and will change drastically within something like 6 months or a year.

did you get my email? i promise i will make sure you don't get lost. or at least i promise that if you do get lost, you'll be lost with me, a person who has the phone number of at least a dozen people who could drive to where we are and drive us where we need to go. together, we will overcome the complexities of the SF public transportation system. wheel-baby and all.

I grew up in Scarborough and was a 17 year old nursing student leaving home in the wee hours of the morning and getting home after dark in the days of Paul Bernardo. That place is fecking scary as hell. I'm so sorry you got lost there - what stress! Have fun at BlogHer though!

I will have to send you my picture of the Stamford pigeon. The husband and I were headed to Irvington, NY, but we ended up on the wrong train. Then, due to the husband’s insistence, we ended up on another wrong train (the express, bound for Connecticut). It was a magical afternoon, chock full of marital hiss. Our only memento of the side trip was the pigeon picture…

My sympathies--must say, have never yet had such a misadventure with a baby in tow. Unless, of course, you count the husband…

Yeah, the prep to go to BlogHer is kind of kicking my ass. And I don't even have a (deliciously cute) newborn.

The Canadian passport rules for babies are crazy. A friend of mine had to have her infant son's passport picture redone about 6 times before the bureaucrats deemed one acceptable. Not. Tiring. At. All.

If you think the Canadian foreign affairs bureaucracy is bizarre, try the UK one. Oiy! The Little Imp is a dual citizen (English and American) and it's taken us a friggin YEAR, as in TWELVE months to get her UK and American passports straightened out. At least I won't have to do THAT for another ten years!

As for Jasper, cuteness! Buckets of cuteness and I just wanna squeeze him. I miss that age.

Ahhh, I love the word boobies, especially from out of the mouth of a 3 year old. As I nursed my 2 mo old son at my daughters dance class my, 3 year old daughter, announced to a bunch of 9-12 year old girls, "that's my baby brother Jackson, he's drinking milk from my mommies boobies". I was horrified and embarrassed and the girls were giggling hysterically. Oh well! Glad to know I'm not the only one having my boobies announced!

I don't feel like I should comment on the post above this one, since I've not been around for so long. But seriously Catherine, hugs to you. I'm glad you are surrounded by lovely ladies and a few lovely mens this weekend. Let them take care of you, it's hard but I'm sure they'll do anything to help out.